The live-action film, a remake of the 1967 animated classic, will be directed by Iron Man-helmer Jon Favreau.

Kingsley – born Krishna Pandit Bhanji – joins a stellar cast of actors including Idris Elbar, who voices the tiger Shere Khan, and Scarlett Johansson and Oscar-winning ’12 Years a Slave’ Lupita Nyong’o.

Disney are said to be hunting for an actor of mixed parentage to play the central character of Mowgli, the young boy who, after being separated from his family as an infant, is raised by a pack of wolves in the jungles of Central India.